if a politician a stays in power too long he will get oppenets no matter he is a war hero look at all the war hero turned politician in past 50 years and you will see they got a lot of enemies
here this articles about the lost opportuny that the US did not use
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/12/the_iraq_war_that_might_have_been?page=0,0
most the emerging markets economy did not try to follow the examples you set above but decolonization that happened earlier and have the same effect right which economic growth but earlier seems unlikely